voaw

joined 4 months ago
[–] voaw@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

That’s good. I was inclined to think i got a dud but my experience trying to read my vast purchased kobo library on the kobo app on my iphone, ipad, and boox palma 2 (the app is basically unusable for me and my account now), plus my terrible customer service experiences with kobo, have left me with an overwhelming idea that kobo as a company sucks and their products are inferior to kindle products.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Progressive Democrats are, by definition, capitalists, not socialists btw.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I have had a terrible experience with kobo btw. $450 for a stupid ereader that, three years later, is glitchy and slow af, doesnt sync to my phone or ipad kobo app if i want to read on those, does not hold a charge, and a lot of ebooks I bought when I first got my kobo no longer work (either some kind of formatting error or just blank pages)! Also, they literally have ZERO customer service except for a team of like two Indian people who will give you the runaround for days. Kobo is an absolute scam. I use my ipad mini with the PocketBook app (there are plenty of others that are just as good) and just download ebooks for free from Anna’s Archive or get from my libraries on libby.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

My argument is that Israel and the US are inextricably linked in a way that #1. Makes it impossible for Israel to commit genocide without the decades long financial, political, and weapons support provided by the US and #2. Makes it impossible for Israel to do anything militarily without at least some US involvement. US companies set up bases on Cypress from which they flew spy planes over Gaza. US companies like Palantir have been surveilling Gaza for years, providing information to the US and Israel which allows them to target civilians so easily. The US GHF (staffed by Americans, many of which come from an islamophobic biker gang*) took over administering aid from UNWRA in Gaza, after which GHF mercenaries terrorized and murdered countless starving Palestinians seeking aid at only a handful of aid distribution sites. Americans (and many Europeans) have joined the IDF and are on active duty in Occupied Palestine. The Biden administration broke US law to continue to provide military aid to Israel despite the US govt's conclusion that Israel was withholding aid from Palestinian civilians**. The Uyghur genocide claim is not based in reality and was a right-wing conspiracy theory put forth by a German Christian nationalist named Adrian Zenz that Trump 1.0 and Biden seized on to further imperialist propaganda against China. There was a real life violent separatist movement in Xinjiang called East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM) that was affiliated with Al-Qaeda that was doing violent terrorist attacks in China. China cracking down on a violent terrorist group is not equal to genocide***.

Again it's not my opinion. What you call my "opinion" is based on unbiased sources that are not propagated by billionaire-funded mainstream imperialist propaganda. If you want more sources, I'd be happy to provide them.

** https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/2/how-us-violates-its-own-leahy-law-to-ensure-military-support-for-israel

*** https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352372325_Playing_Genocide_Politics_The_Zenz-Xinjiang_Case

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

And as for a vanguard communist party coalescing, don't worry about that. DSA, which is democratic socialist not communist (and likely would never be able to fill the shoes of a vanguard party), is super popular now, and socialism and communism in general are gaining popularity among younger people. The more people who are interested in and study socialism and communism and get organized and involved, the likelier we are going to have more and more people willing to come together and form a competent party. Socialism for All (S4A), a youtube channel that publishing educational videos for people wanting to learn Marxist theory and analysis of current events, has seen exponential growth in subscriptions and engagement in the past ten years, as another example.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

Our current bourgeois parties would certainly not have any part in organizing the working class or creating a vanguard party. It is up to the people to organize/be organized in a mass movement outside of a political party that is controlled by and beholden to the rich guys in power. There are third parties in existence now (like the Green Party, Peace & Freedom Party in California, and DSA, if it ever decouples from the Democratic Party) that can help organize workers into a mass movement to support a future vanguard party and worker revolution. But it could also be a mass movement akin to what we saw in Minneapolis, people on the ground from a bunch of different groups (and people from no groups) coming together to oppose ICE. This is all usually spurred on by a sheer drop in living conditions, like we are witnessing right now, and which will only be exacerbated by the growing AI data center trend, which will destabilize water supplies, cause huge electrical service disruptions, and which may cause pollution on a scale we have not experienced in our lifetimes.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Not sure what this AI slop is lol, but this is definitely not what I'm talking about. I recommend reading "How Marxism Works" by Chris Harman if you want to learn more to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. You can read it for free at this link: https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1979/marxism/

You're missing the whole part about the revolution. It's not a revolution brought about by voting or legislation. And it's also not about left vs. right. It's about the majority of people, the working class (farmers, factory workers, delivery drivers, teachers, healthcare workers, anyone who works for a wage and has a boss over them but also including small business owners in a lot of cases), engaging in a mass labor movement against the ruling class (bosses, large business owners, billionaires) in order to provide enough support to the vanguard party (see below) to take power and protect the movement/overwhelm the most likely violent reaction of the minority, wealthy, militaristic ruling class. This is all to achieve a government for the people by the people (to eradicate things like homelessness, mass job layoffs, and exorbitant home, food, and healthcare prices). We want a govt without the influence of billionaires, mega corporations, and the bourgeois political parties (like the Democrats & the Republicans).

Vanguard party (defined by ProleWiki):

The vanguard party, also called the vanguard, is the political party that is the most able to organize the proletariat and other popular classes (such as the peasantry) into a revolutionary party, and thus bring socialism to their country. The vanguard plays an important role in instilling revolutionary class consciousness amongst the proletariat and plays a critical role in the dictatorship of the proletariat in consolidating ties with the proletariat of other nations and maintaining the alliance of the workers and peasants. The vanguard is not a name a party gives themselves or gets bestowed upon them. A party becomes the vanguard when it proves to be the most capable at organizing the proletariat and achieving results. This also means the status of the vanguard can be lost if the party suddenly stops achieving results, or another party achieves even better results towards socialism.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

That's cool but you're coming from a very individualistic perspective. Any kind of revolution would be futile without the support of a mass labor movement that encourages workers to stand up for themselves and organize, something which needs to be the left's main objective before we can even think of revolution. A future disciplined vanguard party will serve the role you are talking about. But without a mass movement, any revolution would be crushed by the overwhelming power of the capitalist police state.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

All of these points are making the assumption that the system we currently have is just hunky dorey. Millions die of poverty and treatable illnesses in the US every year. Isn’t that dangerous? We are all subject to the whims of a tiny minority of sadistic billionaire warmongers and business owners who have captured our news and social media and all of the branches of government. Isn’t that dangerous? You’re just going to accept that we live in a country in which there is ever growing homelessness and preventable death because you’re afraid that a people’s revolution might not turn out as expected?

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Well one of our opinions is based on reality and one is based on vibes. Seems kinda childish to base your whole political ideology on vibes that are informed by snippets of billionaire-funded mainstream media propaganda. It’s doing more harm than good.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

Friend, there are millions of us millennials out here who are in the same boat. You are not alone. I am confident we will, as a generation, improve living conditions for all of us in this lifetime. Capitalism is in its death throes and it sucks that we have to deal with all of the side effects of that, but we have the power to forge new ways of living, and will likely have no choice but to do just that in the near future.

[–] voaw@lemmy.world -3 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

You know the Ukraine war is a US/NATO proxy war to destabilize Russia, right? You know Israel would not exist in its current state without billions of dollars and years of support from the US govt, right? Every conflict on this planet is because of the US and its desperate, bloodthirsty need to ensure every sovereign nation on the globe is in alignment with “US interests” aka upholding US hegemony and the US military industrial complex. Read “Killing Hope” by William Blum if you’re interested in learning more.

The Palestinian genocide is 100% facilitated by the governments of both the US and Israel, and also by most of the governments of Europe and the Middle East and Australia and Canada. But mainly the US and its proxy in the ME Israel!

Y’all need to learn the definition of genocide because Russia and China are certainly doing nothing of the sort. There’s a difference between war and genocide, in the case of Russia (which by all estimates has lost a hell of a lot more lives than Ukraine), and there’s a difference between cracking down on foreign-armed separatist terrorists and genocide, in the case of China. It could even be argued that Ukraine was committing genocide against ethnic Russians in the Donbas prior to 2022 as there is ample evidence.

Lastly, all of this is not a matter of “your opinion”. It’s a matter of reality and the degree to which we are able and willing to see that reality by finding accurate information outside of the overwhelming propaganda machine of Western mainstream media.

 

A historic synagogue in Tehran, originally built in 1958, was destroyed on the Jewish holiday of Passover by Israeli airstrikes on April 7th.

The Rafi-Nia Synagogue, located in central Tehran, was one of the longstanding institutions serving Iran’s Jewish community. Constructed in 1958, it stood as both a place of worship and a symbol of the deep historical roots of Judaism in Iran, which stretch back more than two millennia.

“We are Iranian Jews and we are always ready to sacrifice our lives for our homeland,” Bihdad Mikhail, managing director of the Tehran Jewish Association, told MintPress News as he held back his tears while carrying Jewish books that were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

The Mikhail told MintPress that the Jewish community in Iran is vehemently anti-Zionist and have vowed their loyalty to their Iranian homeland against Israeli attacks.

The Mikhail told MintPress that the Jewish community in Iran is vehemently anti-Zionist and have vowed their loyalty to their Iranian homeland against Israeli attacks.

Raw video footage and interviews with the synagogue director however show that the building was completely leveled, with religious materials, including Torah scrolls, buried beneath the rubble. Israel denies deliberately targeting the historic synagogue, with Israeli officials describing the damage as “collateral”.

Raw video footage and interviews with the synagogue director however show that the building was completely leveled, with religious materials, including Torah scrolls, buried beneath the rubble. Israel denies deliberately targeting the historic synagogue, with Israeli officials describing the damage as “collateral”.

The strike has been condemned not only by Iranian officials but also by members of Iran’s Jewish community who told MintPress that “Israel is an ominous Zionist regime”.

Representatives of the community have emphasized that the synagogue was a purely religious space, with no military function, underscoring the broader implications of the attack.

The destruction of the Rafi-Nia Synagogue highlights the often-overlooked reality of Iran’s Jewish population. Contrary to common perceptions, Iran is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Middle East outside of Israel, with more than 10,000 Jews and approximately 100 active synagogues across the country. These communities have maintained religious life and cultural traditions for generations.

Judaism is one of the main recognized religions by the Iranian government providing religious protection to this community.

For many, the attack raises troubling questions about the widening scope of the conflict.

Religious and cultural sites have historically been protected under international law, yet recent weeks have seen increasing reports of damage to UNESCO heritage sites across Iran, either directly or through nearby strikes.

The timing of the strike has also intensified outrage. Reports indicate that the attack occurred during a period of religious observance, amplifying concerns that places of worship are no longer being treated as protected spaces in the expanding war.

Beyond the immediate destruction, the loss of the synagogue represents a deeper cultural blow. Sites like the Rafi-Nia Synagogue are not only places of worship but also repositories of history, identity, and communal memory. Their destruction erases physical links to longstanding minority communities that have coexisted within Iran for centuries.

While Israel claims to be a “Jewish State”, this latest attack against an Iranian synagogue shows Israel’s actions are rooted in destruction, genocide and an attempt to sow chaos.

Source: MintPress News https://www.mintpressnews.com/iranian-jewish-association-describe-israel-as-ominous-zionist-regime-after-israeli-strikes-destroy-historic-synagogue-on-passover/290836/

 

From independent Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone:

Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon, a nation which is explicitly off-limits for any attack under the ceasefire conditions agreed to by Tehran.

The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked.

Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east. As long as that state continues to exist in its present iteration, peace will never be attainable.

Democrats in the House and Senate are finally moving on a War Powers Act to stop the US president from going to war with Iran, and I’d say better late than never but at this point that would barely even be true.

Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy are currently slamming the president not for his horrifying mass atrocities in Iran but for losing the Strait of Hormuz and failing to achieve objectives like completely disarming their conventional missile program.

As I have said here previously, it’s clear that the reason the Democratic Party failed to oppose Trump’s warmongering with Iran was because they supported it too.

The actual, official 2024 Democratic Party platform accused Trump of “fecklessness and weakness” for failing to go to war with Iran during his first term. Kamala Harris labeled Iran the #1 enemy of the United States. In their 2024 debate, Harris repeatedly slammed Trump for being too soft on America’s enemies and announced that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to argue that Trump’s depravity in Iran proves everyone should support Democrats, but it’s clear the Democratic Party is just the more polite-looking face on the same evil power structure.

The Grayzone’s Wyatt Reed has an article out about a freakish BBC article which cited an anonymous Iranian who allegedly told them he supports the US and Israel “hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb, or leveling Iran.” Following public outcry, the quote was removed and replaced with completely different words — initially without any editor’s note of any kind.

Reed documents how the BBC reporter behind the story, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, is a London-based Iranian monarchist with an extensive history of agitating for regime change war against her home country, including with the US government propaganda operation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Last month The Times ran an article titled “Some Iranians say one thing’s worse than bombs: no bombs”. Western powers are always aggressively pushing this self-evidently false claim that people in empire-targeted countries want bombs dropped on them, in much the same way slavery proponents argued that Africans were happiest as slaves because God made it their nature to serve.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s impossible to have enough disdain for the western press.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-193682839

https://thegrayzone.com/2026/04/07/senior-bbc-iran-reporter-opposition-activist/

 

https://vimeo.com/1181733009?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Clip from a Twitch stream she posted on YT Original video: https://youtu.be/CrFKvQ06XUU

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